Wanderlove (6 page)

“Huh?”

“It’s not a hermaphrodite? Isn’t that a man’s head on a woman’s body?”

I stared at my drawing, horrified. “No! It’s not supposed to be. Maybe I made her jaw a little big, or her neck, but—”

“Oh no!” Toby exclaimed. “Aw, Bria, I’m sorry. It’s really nice. All of them are.” He handed my sketchbook back to me. “But if you want, I can show you a little bit about mannequinizing your figures. It really provides a framework for rendering three-dimensional mass. You have so much potential.”

It’s hard to find fault with comments like that.

Well, in retrospect, it’s not
too
hard. But Toby’s back-handed compliments were easy to disregard in the radiance of the months that followed—months spent poring over art books with crumbling covers, tramping Malibu Canyon to paint the views plein air, making out against the door of the art room closet, talking on the phone for hours instead of calling back Reese and Olivia. Sketching caricatures of other students. Sketching teachers in drag. Sketching our fantasy trip to Europe.

All summer long, Toby and I prepared our portfolios for SCAA’s fast-track admissions, swearing that whoever made it, whoever didn’t, we’d still attend the school together, no matter what (because naturally, we’d both be admitted the regular way). Even if the Southern California Art Academy wasn’t the East Coast atelier I’d dreamed about, the idea of attending art school with moody, intense, brilliant Toby

Kelsey—the first person who I felt really
got
me, or at least the me I thought I wanted to be—was too good to be true.

And yet it was coming true.

We were
planning
it.

Some of my old sketchbooks—the ones I stashed under my bed right around the time art school acceptance letters arrived—held drawings of Bria’s Dream Guy. He wore tiny black glasses and Converse shoes, with that legendary paintbrush tucked behind his ear. Then there was his archnemesis, the Bad Guy. In a series of two-dimensional encounters, Bria’s Dream Guy rescued her from the Bad Guy—via surfboard, hang glider, and white stallion—paintbrush moonlighting as a sword.

Back then, I thought Mother Nature split the good guys from the bad with a fat black line.

But the thing is, in real life, they’re often the same guy.

In the kitchen, the backpackers circle a table piled with food. Scrambled tofu, fruit salad, tortillas marbled with black beans, barbecued ears of corn. Guatemalan food with flower child flair. Everything is vegetarian—though not vegan, Starling warns me, like I care.

Okay, so maybe I’ve misjudged these people. It’s hard to feel standoffish crammed shoulder to shoulder on picnic benches, eating with forks and fingers, while a red-haired Canadian guy strums David Bowie on a dented guitar. Several people get up and dance, hoisting their beers in the air. I laugh. And I eat. And I try not to think about how angry Marcy’s going to be when I get back to Panajachel tomorrow morning, despite the message I left at our hotel’s front desk.

Or about Glenna, professional beadworker, sitting alone in our room just the way I left her. As long as I stay right here, in the present, I have to admit: I’m enjoying myself.

Then Starling ruins everything.

“Know what time it is?” she shouts. She chucks her beer bottle into the recycling bin and climbs up on the table. Her bejeweled toes are inches from my plate. “It’s skinny-dipping time!”

A cheer erupts from the other backpackers. Benches scrape back as everybody hops to their feet. I stay put, hoping no one will notice.

“Come on, Bria!” Starling says. “You’re the guest of honor—you’ve got to go.”

“It’s only cold at first!” calls a French girl.

Everyone’s looking at me, but there’s no freaking way in hell I’m getting in this or any other body of water, naked, clothed, or in a clown suit. I shake my head.

“Too shy?” Starling taunts.

“
Starling
,” says Rowan, who has traded his apron for a gray button-down shirt. He steered clear of me all through dinner, presumably in case I turned violent. It’s probably a good idea, even though I’m not really angry anymore. I shoot him a grateful look. Starling rolls her eyes before bouncing from the tabletop and out the door. Others follow, some of them already shedding clothes.

Rowan shrugs at me and heads outside.

Soon anyone who’s not skinny-dipping has wandered away, including Hal. I’d head to bed, but I don’t know where bed is. For a while, I hang around the empty room, skimming books in German, stacking dirty dishes. When I find myself staring at a trail of ants on the floor, I decide I’ve had enough of myself.

The moon is out, doubled by the water. The silhouettes of the woolly black dogs stand guard on the dock. Shrieks and splashes carve the night. Since sitting on the dock above the swimmers might make me look like a pervert, I walk along the shore until I find a grassy patch beside the lake. From there, I can see the sparkle of wet limbs, glistening heads skating along the surface of the water, but no actual nudity.

I sigh.

It’s not that I
want
to join in. It’s just . . . I
want to
want to, if that makes any sense. My time with Toby taught me to look both ways before attempting anything new. Until now, when even the
suggestion
of joining in makes me resist.

“So you don’t like getting naked with strangers?” Rowan has materialized beside me. Entirely clothed and dry, I note. I shake my head and shrug at the same time. “Why, do you?”

“On occasion,” he replies. He hesitates a moment, then settles beside me at a respectable distance. “Of course, it depends on the naked strangers.”

“How about Starling?”

He wrinkles his nose. “My sister?”

“Oh, she’s your
sister.
” I clear my throat, silently thanking God that relief isn’t something another person can see, like a blush. “You don’t look anything alike.”

“Different mothers. She’s about a year older.”

“Oh,” I say again. I sift the pebbles through my fingers until I find a flat stone to fling into the water. It skips three times before sinking, breaking up the moon.

“Anyway, it’s not the nudity,” I confess. “I don’t swim.”

“Don’t, or can’t?”

“Either.”

“It’s shallow here,” Rowan points out.

I fling another stone into the water. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It’s really about the nudity, isn’t it?”

“Just quit it, okay? It’s getting irritating.” He laughs. “That’s quite a statement, considering those roly-poly people you’re touring with. Why aren’t you backpacking?”

I consider making up some kind of complicated explanation. But then I remember—cringingly—getting caught in my lie on the plane. By both Starling and Glenna. Horrors.

So I tell the truth. “It never even occurred to me.” Rowan runs his palm up and down his forearm, the dragon’s eye winking in and out. I’d never admit it to his face, but his tattoo disappoints me. You’d think a guy like him would choose something more esoteric. Like a quote from a favorite book. Or maybe a mysterious religious emblem from somewhere special he’s traveled. A dragon seems so . . .
frat boy.

“It must drive you crazy,” he remarks. “To have your entire trip planned out for you. No choices of your own. As soon as you begin to get acclimated somewhere, it’s time to move on.”

“At least I’m here.”

“True. Most people don’t get this far in their whole lives.” I hide my smile by pretending to search for more stones.

“So what are you really doing here, Rowan? Straight answer.”

“I teach scuba diving.”

No wonder my aversion to water made him all itchy. “In the lake?”

“Sure. But all over the place.”

“Like where?”

“Besides here?” He stretches. “Well, I’ve been in Guatemala almost three months—the longest I’ve been anywhere for ages. Before that, the Bay Islands in Honduras. Little Corn Island in Nicaragua. All over Costa Rica. I spent some time backpacking Thailand, Laos, and Malaysia. Not many other places, but I’m still young.”

“How young, exactly?”

“Nineteen. Twenty in September. You?”

“I’m eighteen. But wait—you’re saying you traveled that much in how long? How long have you been traveling?”

“I left home a couple weeks after I turned eighteen.” I shake my head in disbelief. He’s been traveling for almost two years. I try to wrap my brain around it, but my mental arms won’t reach. “What about college?”

“College is overrated. I’m already doing what I want to do: travel and dive. I don’t need a degree to do it.” He shrugs.

“Although I’ve taken a few online courses for fun. Like Cognitive Psychology. And Oceanography. And Intro to Portuguese—I thought I’d visit Brazil someday.” He tries to skip a stone in the water. It sinks.

“Pathetic. You’ve got to find a flatter one.” I find a perfect stone and hand it to him. He tries again. It sinks too, and I laugh. “So . . . where are you headed next?”

“Northeastward.”

“What’s northeastward?”

“More money, for starters. And more beauty, of course.”

“More beauty than this?” I hold my hands at arm’s length and form a rectangle with my thumbs and forefingers, a viewfinder. I miss my camera—it was the perfect excuse
not
to draw. Now my sketchbook’s the only record I’ll have of this trip. If I can ever bring myself to draw in it.

“It’s different. There’s rain forest. And the Caribbean. I have a dive gig off the coast of Belize, on an island called Laughingbird Caye. They’re having a festival soon, and that’s when the money comes in.”

Laughing Bird Caye.
I like the sound of it. “And after that?”

“No clue. I’ll head south, I guess.”

Over Rowan’s shoulder, I see Starling approaching. “Brazil?” I ask.

“Who knows.?”

Starling heaves herself beside him. Her clothes stick to her damp body. “Forgot towels! The least sexy part of skinny-dipping is getting dressed.” She leans back on her elbows and winks at me. “So how’s it going, Bria Sandoval? Let me guess—you’re thoroughly enchanted by
la vie bohème,
and you’re ready to exchange that clunky suitcase for a backpack and join us on our journey.”

She can’t be serious. I hurl another rock at the water and it skips four times.

“You don’t think I’m serious,” she continues. “But I am.

Listen: you’ve made it to Central America—hooray! But now that you’re here, why don’t you use this opportunity to travel?

Like, to
really
travel? With people who know the right places to go?”

I glance at Rowan, who is busy examining his stack of string ankle bracelets. I’m starting to feel nervous. “Ha,” I say.

“You guys are crazy.”

Starling chuckles. “It’s not like we’re inviting you to an orgy! Although I hope you haven’t taken a vow of chastity or anything—that might be a problem for my brother here.” Rowan shoves Starling’s shoulder. “Hey! Who said I was even interested?”

“You’re
always
interested.”

“You know that’s not true—”

“I have a boyfriend, anyway,” I blurt out.

Where the hell did that come from? My face catches fire.

Silently, I thank the darkness for hiding my burning cheeks.

It’s like something out of a bad romantic comedy. I
hate
that kind of movie; The liar always gets caught. But it’s too late. I can’t take it back.
Oh no, really, I was kidding. I’m single and
ready to mingle!
Kill me now.

Starling, however, is grinning. “Perfect! You’ll be our other sister. Entirely platonic. So there’s nothing stopping you. Come on, Bria . . . be impulsive for once!” I stare at the stone in my hands—and discover it’s not a stone; it’s an avocado pit. I roll it down the slope into the lake.

I want to argue that they know nothing about me—I
am
impulsive. Didn’t I steal away to Santa Lucía? Sprint off in Chichicastenango? Journey to Central America in the first place? I even almost ate a street cart tamale!

I have the feeling Starling won’t be impressed.

Toby liked to say he chose not to be impulsive. As if being impulsive were something you consciously decide. When I look at Starling, with her turquoise turban and wet knot of hair, and at Rowan, with his stack of cheap string anklets, I think:
Impulsive isn’t something you
choose.
It’s something you
are. Like gay, or freckled, or bipolar.

Something I pretend to be but am not. Not really. Not deep down.

I try to find an easy out. “But I’ve got no money.”

“None at all?”

“Very, very little.”

“We’re not talking like twenty dollars here, right?”

“Just a couple hundred . . .”

Starling waves her hand dismissively. “That’s more than enough when you travel like us. When’s your flight home?”

“I leave from Guatemala City in eighteen days.”

“It’ll be hard to get her back in time,” Rowan says quietly.

“I need to be in Belize for a whole week.”

“But that leaves, like, eleven extra days,” I say. “Doesn’t it take just a couple days to get there? Why are you allowing so much time to travel?”

“Because it’s the whole point—”

Before he can finish, the rest of the skinny-dippers—some of whom haven’t even bothered to put on clothes—mob us, and in the resulting anarchy of wet limbs and dreadlocks, the moment’s lost.